This blog will hopefully give you a glimpse of our life here on the equator. We hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave us comments.
Also, please make sure you click on the photos to enlarge them for a much better view!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Hello everyone ~ one more week of school left ~ it's so hard to believe!I just wanted to post a couple quick pictures. The first two are taken in downtown Quito. Chris and I were out and about on Saturday running errands. We're always so struck by the fact that we're in the middle of the city but surrounded by these gorgeous mountains. Make sure you click on the picture to view it larger ~ otherwise you don't get the same effect.By the way, Chris is standing next to the sign for my favorite store here, Camari. It's a fair trade co-op that sells delicious snacks, quinoa pasta, honey, etc. This area also has a huge fruit/vegetable/meat market that's always a lot of fun to visit.

Here's a picture of a bunch of the teachers we work with. Friday night was graduation and last night was the senior banquet which, I guess is their version of prom. It's held at the Swiss Hotel, which is the fanciest hotel in Quito, and families come and buy tables. Teachers also go (although we slipped out before things really got rolling ~ we thought it was a little weird for us to be there while students are partying). At the beginning of the evening they announce each senior and they are escorted down a runway.

I'll also try to post some more pictures from two amazing field trips I took this past week. The first was with the fourth grade and we went to a rose farm. Ecuador is one of the leading exporters of roses and one of the students' family runs a farm. It was really cool to see how they run the place and get all the roses ready to export.The other trip was with the fifth grade (since I'll be teaching that grade next year) and they do a unit on the environment and one of the groups works on deforestation. So we went to visit a mountain outside of Quito where a guy is reforesting a portion of the mountain. It was beautiful and he's doing great things and showing other people how they can reforest the land. The kids were so excited to see what he was doing ~ he even has a windmill there.Anyway, that's about it for now ~ hope everyone is well!

Friday, June 01, 2007

These four pictures (above) are of our favorite fruit - maracuya - it's pretty unique and there's certainly nothing like it in the states - once you get the seeds out - which is pretty easy - you throw them in a blender with a generous dose of powdered sugar - blend - and strain through a sieve to get rid of the seeds - yum! (sweet and tart) - they even sell maracuya gatorade

The 2 pics below are naranjilla, and like the maracuya you blender with sugar to enjoy ~ they are also unique and delicious (both of these, by the way, are also great with a little vodka and seltzer)

This seed is really cool - if you drop it it can sail like a paper airplane - it's about 4 inches across